Northcom has announced that two more
U.S. military units will be assigned for domestic homeland security
missions, bringing the total number of combat ready service members
operating inside the U.S. to around 4,700, as fears grow about the increasing
militarization of law enforcement.

The announcement follows the controversy
surrounding a September
8 Army Times report (revised on September 30), which revealed that
the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, fresh from
combat duties in Iraq, would be operating inside America for tasks including
"civil unrest and crowd control," a detail that was later
denied by Northcom despite the concession that forces would be armed
with both non-lethal and lethal weapons as well as having access to
tanks.

"In the next three years the military
plans to activate and train an estimated 4,700 service members for specialized
domestic operations, according to Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, commander
of U.S. Northern Command, which was created in 2002 for homeland defense
missions," reports the Colorado
Independent.

“It’s to help us manage
the consequences of a large-scale event,” said Renuart. “We
have one [unit] now trained and equipped and assigned to the Northern
Command. We’ll grow a second one this calendar year of 2009 and
a third one in the calendar year 2010 so we can provide the nation three
sets of capabilities that could respond to an event of the size of 9/11
or larger.”

But as Mike German, national security
counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s legislative office
in Washington., D.C., points out, “This isn’t a military
police brigade or a civil affairs brigade. This is actually a combat
brigade being assigned a domestic mission.”

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“It’s fine for the general
to say that,” said counter-terrorist operations specialist German.
“But we want to know what the policies actually are, what the
roles are and what the regulations are to see whether this is actually
complying with the law.”

The ACLU has filed a Freedom Of Information
Request demanding more information on the purpose and scope of military
assets under Northcom control being deployed domestically.

Despite Northcom's insistence that the
deployments are purely related to natural disaster and mass casualty
response, the original Army Times report quoted 1st BCT commander Col.
Roger Cloutier as saying that the unit would be trained in the use of
"nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals"
for the purposes of "crowd and traffic control".

The use of U.S. troops in law enforcement
duties is a complete violation of the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection
Act, which substantially limit the powers of the federal government
to use the military for law enforcement unless under precise and extreme
circumstances.

Section 1385 of the Posse
Comitatus Act states, "Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances
expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully
uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise
to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not
more than two years, or both."

Under the John Warner Defense Authorization
Act, signed by President Bush on October 17, 2006, the law was changed
to state, "The President may employ the armed forces to restore
public order in any State of the United States the President determines
hinders the execution of laws or deprives people of a right, privilege,
immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law
or opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States
or impedes the course of justice under those laws."

Fears of active duty military assets
being called upon to administer martial law in the aftermath of an economic
collapse or a large scale terrorist attack were heightened after
we revealed the existence of a FEMA-run program which is training
Pastors and other religious representatives to become secret police
enforcers who teach their congregations to "obey the government"
in preparation for a declaration of martial law, property and firearm
seizures, and forced relocation.